


Collided

by starkaryen



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, emotional journey, firefly man, or something like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 22:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkaryen/pseuds/starkaryen
Summary: Will asks Hannibal to go to the one place Hannibal could not go back. To return to his home.





	Collided

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [matildaparacosm](matildaparacosm.tumblr.com/). Thank you so much for trusting in me to write this, and for being so considerate and patient when I asked you to finish other things before writing this (I'll be eternally sorry, though, for being blocked for such a long time, and for not being able to deliver this sooner, and better. But at least it's here now!).   
> Also, check out [the amazing art](https://matildaparacosm.tumblr.com/post/157104048832/this-is-my-gift-for-you-followersim-a-slow) she made based on this idea, too :)
> 
> Thank you so much to @[MihaTrochael](https://twitter.com/MihaTrochael) for helping me visualize how exactly the Firefly Man would look years later. I have never been so interested in body decomposition as I am now! (Also, I hope the government isn't looking at my search history... haha)
> 
> Thank you, also, to Llewcie for betaing this fic and, as always, knowing what to say to make me feel slightly better about my writing, and how to make it a little bit better with her amazing insight<3

Even before getting out of the car, Will noticed how different everything was now. He closed the door and stepped closer to the big, main gates, the leaves crunching under his shoes. The previous time he had been here, the sky had seemed grayer, the air thicker, the time suspended as if there was a dome above him that isolated the entire extension of field in front of him from the real world.

The land inside still looked otherworldly, but now it was different; the sun was still shining in the sky, even if it was already melting with the horizon, and the part of the first house that Will could see through the trees ahead looked even more unkempt and deteriorated with time.

In that moment, Will heard the leaves crunching beside him, and he turned to face Hannibal. Will could feel the tension in every part of the man’s body, in the way he was almost gritting his teeth and tensing his jaw, in the slight frown on his brow. He had been like that since the very moment Will had asked him to come here. It had been a year since their fight with the Dragon, in which they had healed and traveled to stay off of the radar. They had barely talked, _really_ talked, about anything, and Will had known Hannibal was growing impatient, as he himself was. Until one night, he asked Will plainly.

“Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” Hannibal had stated.

And so, Will had asked him for this. To go back to the one place Hannibal could not go back. To return to his home.

“Shall we?” Will asked.

Hannibal closed his eyes for a second and inhaled through his nose slowly. When he exhaled, he opened his eyes and nodded once, tension coating his expression. Will felt almost guilty, but now that they had come all the way here, he wasn’t about to turn back.

The gate creaked when Will pushed it open, and they walked the long ago faded path towards the first house, the one that Will assumed had belonged to part of the service that attended the Lecter estate; his bet was on the gardener, or gardeners, since judging by the extension of the land, it would’ve been an impossible task for a single person.

When Hannibal reached the building, he didn’t try to open the door, as Will had done when he had been here. He simply walked slowly around it, looking through the few clear spaces in the dirty windows that the ivy had left. When they made it to the back of the house, Hannibal stopped in his tracks. Will saw the change in Hannibal’s expression as he looked past the damaged low gate. Will knew what was in the back of the house; he _knew_ what Hannibal was gazing at, and so he didn’t dare to talk or move before Hannibal did. The man finally blinked and walked towards the gate, so Will followed in silence.

Time seemed to have stopped around them as Hannibal led the way through the grass-covered pebbled path. Will felt strange, as if he was having déjà vu, but at the same time it was completely different; he wasn’t alone this time, even though by then he had felt Hannibal beside him at all times. Now Hannibal was actually here while they walked among the headstones that rose from the ground, where the entire Lecter lineage lay… all, but one.

Hannibal didn’t have to wander around them like Will had; he went straight to one in the middle of it, one that rose sturdy but smaller in comparison to the others. As soon as it was in their view, Hannibal stopped, the headstone still a few feet away from them. Will stayed behind him, allowing him a moment to adjust. When he finally approached it, he did it slowly and carefully, almost as if he was afraid of it. Hannibal paused in front of the headstone, and Will did so behind him. They stayed in complete silence as Hannibal stared into the stone.

“Did you want me in a place where I am not my strongest self?” Hannibal finally spoke, breaking the silence that had lingered around them since they had walked through the main gates.

“Is that why you think I asked you to come here?” Will asked, frowning at Hannibal’s nape.

Hannibal turned and looked at him for a long time with a deep sadness in his eyes. He seemed, for once, to be at a loss of words.

“I honestly have no idea. As always… I can never predict you.”

Will smiled, but it was a fleeting one that didn’t reach his eyes. He nodded towards the path they had made to come here.

“Come with me.”

They made the way back out of the cemetery in reversed positions: Will leading the way, Hannibal following behind, the leaves that crunched under both of their feet the only sound that betrayed their presence in the eerie silence around them.

Will remembered the way to what had been Chiyoh’s residence well, circling the cemetery and a little closer to the huge castle on the hill that loomed over them at all times. Without Chiyoh’s presence, the house where she had lived was now being claimed by nature, ivy invading the entire front of the house, branches lying carelessly in the path, a layer of dust probably covering everything inside…

Will paused for a second, observing the house until Hannibal stopped beside him. He nodded towards the path that diverged to the basement.

“I came here to understand more of you…” Will started saying as they walked through the path.

“Did you?” Hannibal asked after a pause, but Will didn’t turn around.

“Yes. But I also understood more of myself. Even if I couldn’t see it in that moment.”

They came to a stop at the entrance, and Hannibal looked at Will, probably trying to discern the meaning behind his words. But Hannibal knew he was about to find out, so he stepped aside to let Will guide him.

Will pushed the door to the basement open, which scraped against the ground as it moved for the first time since he had been here. As soon as he looked inside, he noticed the sun had almost completely gone down, which made the entrance to the basement pitch black. He took his flashlight from his coat pocket and lit it up before they started walking into the darkness… But to Will’s surprise, as he walked inside avoiding the spider webs that went from one side to the other of the walls, he noticed a dim light in the inside of the basement… and when he was reaching the room, he realized what it was: fireflies. It wasn’t much light, but enough so they made quite the scene; the small insects dancing around the cave-like room as if they were welcoming them… and in the center of the room, the man hanging as Will had left him all those years ago, which now that he was here, felt like days.

Will noticed the moment in which Hannibal saw it, because he heard the almost silent intake of breath. He stopped a few feet away from the firefly man, but Hannibal didn’t; he walked past Will and approached it wide-eyed with his lips parted. Will smiled a little, and felt his chest filling with joy.

Will observed how much the firefly man had changed with time, exactly as the outside had; the ropes were a little damaged, yet still hanging. Some of the crystals Will had attached to the body as decoration had fallen to the ground and shattered, which actually looked beautiful; the light from the fireflies and now Will’s flashlight reflected on them and upwards into the ceiling, drawing a hundred different colors as if it were a church’s stained glass… But the most noticeable change was, of course, the body itself; still wrapped in its cocoon, it had decomposed with the passage of time, looking almost like a mummy, the skin a strange brown color that looked more leather than skin, with the exception of some of the hair still attached to the skull.

“You did not kill him,” Hannibal whispered, pulling Will out of the trance he had fallen into.

Will blinked and processed his words. “No. Chiyoh,” he answered, even though it hadn’t been a question.

Hannibal nodded slowly, and Will heard the word _attagirl_ in his mind, exactly as he had heard it from Hannibal’s lips years back, in the Uffizi gallery.

“Chiyoh may have been the executive hand, but… you made it happen.”

It wasn’t a question, again, but when Hannibal looked at him, Will still nodded once admitting it for the first time, even to himself.

“This… is your design,” Hannibal said, and Will saw the unshed tears in his eyes.

Will felt his heart skipping a beat and his throat tightening. He looked at the firefly man again, fighting himself the tears in the back of his eyes.

_This_ was why he had asked Hannibal to come here, and even if he didn’t quite understand the reason himself back when he had, now he did… He _needed_ Hannibal to see it, for him to see what Will had done even before the Dragon, and before Will allowed anyone else to fall because of Hannibal and Will’s blade.

“I confess, I… didn’t know why I did this, back then. I only knew that I had to. But now I know,” Will said, and looked back at Hannibal. He tried to even his breathing, but when he raised his hand to offer his palm to Hannibal, it was shaking almost imperceptibly.

Hannibal put his hand on Will’s hesitantly, and Will didn’t have to pull him closer, since he walked the two steps between them on his own, as if pulled by Will’s gravity.

“I know that I did this for myself… but also for _you_.”

Hannibal looked at the man again; the man that had been the reason for Hannibal’s pain so many years back, the man that had committed a horrible act… and the man who was, now, hanging forever in this cave, a beautiful and brutal reminder of what both Hannibal and Will were capable of. Because Will would do this again, and not only because he had always had it inside him… But because whoever dared to hurt Hannibal or himself, would now have their fate set.

A tear rolled down the slope of Hannibal’s cheeks as he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them and looked at him, Will tightened the hold he still had on Hannibal’s hand. He saw in his eyes the pride at what Will had done, the relief at finally understanding why they were here, and the peace that came with the realization, his body relaxing for the first time in a place that he once had sworn not to step on ever again.

“Will…”

But Will didn’t let him go on, because he already knew all that. Instead, he pulled Hannibal closer with his hand as he leaned into him, his free hand finding Hannibal’s neck and his lips finding the other’s easily, as if they had done this a million times before. But being the first time their lips were meeting, despite this not being the most intimate act they had shared, Will felt his heart fluttering happily inside his chest, his stomach dropping at the feeling of the other man’s skin under his fingertips, at how Hannibal stayed completely still for a second, only to react by pressing Will even closer with a hand on the small of his back, and at how their lips fit oh, so beautifully well together.

When Will pulled back, he sighed against Hannibal’s lips and smiled.

“How about we go home?” Will asked, and he felt Hannibal’s hands tightening around him and in his own.

“That sounds perfect…”

They pulled further back, and stayed for a while longer to observe the display, Will’s hand on Hannibal’s shoulder to maintain the contact… because now that they had collided together, it seemed impossible to pull apart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you guys liked it!
> 
> \----
> 
> If you like my writing, please consider checking out all the information and links about it [here](https://about.me/mizumohno).
> 
> Say hello to me @ [twitter](https://twitter.com/mizumohno) and [tumblr](http://starkaryen.tumblr.com/) :)
> 
> Thank you so much for your kudos and comments!  
> I can't answer all comments due to lack of time, and because sometimes it overwhelms me to do so, but please know that comments make me want to keep writing and publishing; I read them all and appreciate every single one of them♥


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